Meta reaches landmark $18 billion settlement with states in trial over
teen social media addiction
[August 27, 2026] By
BARBARA ORTUTAY, KELVIN CHAN and KAITLYN HUAMANI
OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — Meta agreed Wednesday to pay up to $18 billion
and add stronger child-safety measures to its Facebook and Instagram
platforms as part of a landmark legal settlement that ended a trial over
teen social media addiction and settled claims filed by nearly every
state.
The settlement resolved a pivotal case years in the making that sought
to hold the tech giant accountable for the role its platforms played in
undermining children’s mental health. The effort targeted features
designed to hook young people’s attention.
The agreement “institutes real change, real transparency, real
protections for children and teens across the country,” California
Attorney General Rob Bonta said.
If approved by the court, the deal will stop an avalanche of litigation
by states against Meta, although the company still faces lawsuits from
individuals and school districts throughout the U.S. For the states, the
settlement delivers money for mental-health programs for kids, including
after-school or summer activities and digital literacy counselors.
Advocates cheered the new protections, including default time limits and
the disabling of features such as “like” counts.
But “we cannot truly protect all children and teens until these
protections are required on every platform and are permanent — that’s
something only Congress can do,” said Sacha Haworth, executive director
of The Tech Oversight Project.
The settlement will be paid out over 10 years. California will get the
largest sum of at least $1.5 billion, but several other states will
still collect hundreds of millions of dollars each over the decade.
The settlement “will put an end to these dangerous practices and deliver
meaningful relief that will protect children from online harm," Virginia
Attorney General Jay Jones said.
Meta urges rivals to adopt similar safety measures
Meta said in a blog post that it was “building on our longstanding
efforts to empower parents and support teens.”
“Ensuring teens have a safe and productive experience on our platforms
is an absolute imperative for Meta,” the company said. “We want to get
this right for parents and teens, and that’s why we partnered with state
attorneys general to set a new industry standard."
The company urged competitors TikTok and YouTube to adopt similar safety
measures.
The $18 billion settlement is a fraction of Meta's 2025 revenue of $201
billion. Meta shares closed up about 1% Wednesday, although they rose as
much as 4% during the day.
The agreement cuts short an ongoing court case involving California,
Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey, which were among 29 states that sued
Meta in 2023. The federal trial kicked off last week in Oakland,
California, where Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg had been among the witnesses
expected to take the stand.
The lawsuit accused Meta of contributing to the youth mental health
crisis by deliberately designing features that addict children to its
platforms and hiding them from the public. The case also argued that
Meta violated federal laws by routinely collecting data on children
under 13 without their parents’ consent.
The cases in other states had been expected to go to trial later, but
are now resolved. The settlement covers 48 states, as well as
Washington, D.C., and some U.S. territories. The only two states to be
excluded are New Mexico, which went to trial in its case against Meta
and won earlier this year, and Florida, where the attorney general said
the settlement was not tough enough on Meta.
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier wrote on X that the “payouts are
peanuts compared to the profound harms Meta’s profit-driven addictive
features inflicted on kids.”
New features to include time limits and curbs on push notifications
Under the proposed settlement, Meta agreed to adopt a series of safety
features, including two-hour daily time limits that can only be disabled
with a parent's permission and pauses for children using Instagram and
Facebook.
The company will eliminate push notifications during weekday school
hours and bring in “robust” age-assurance measures and “age-appropriate”
content controls to prevent bullying and harmful material about eating
disorders and self-harm.
[to top of second column] |
Members of California's legal team gather outside court after a
settlement was reached in a multi-state lawsuit accusing Meta of
causing harm to children on social media outside the Ronald V.
Dellums Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse on Wednesday, Aug. 26,
2026, in Oakland, Calif. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)
 There will be stronger and more
user-friendly parental controls and limits on social comparison
features such as “like” counts.
An independent auditor will assess how Meta is implementing the
safety features and how effective they are.
The company said 30% of the settlement amount — about $5.3 billion —
will be released to states only if rivals YouTube and TikTok meet
two conditions: implementing similar safety features, including a
one-hour daily time limit, a nighttime block and age-assurance
measures; and paying the same amount, split between the two
companies.
Neither YouTube owner Google nor TikTok responded to requests for
comments.
Meta officials declined to comment on whether they had conversations
with their competitors about those conditions, but said they
intentionally designed the agreement with the states to incentivize
the rest of the industry to follow suit.
Some of the safety measures Meta will implement, like disabling
cosmetic surgery and extreme makeup filters, made sense regardless
of whether competing platforms do the same, Meta said. Other
features, like the overnight block, will function better if they are
established across the board, the company said.
If industry peers sign on to the agreement, Meta will implement
stronger defaults for teens’ daily time limit and the length of time
for “night mode.”
Investigation was led by bipartisan coalition
The federal lawsuit was the result of an investigation led by a
bipartisan coalition of attorneys general from California, Florida,
Kentucky, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New Jersey, Tennessee and
Vermont. It followed newspaper reports, first by The Wall Street
Journal in 2021, that found the company knew about the harm
Instagram can cause teenagers — especially teen girls — when it
comes to mental health and body image issues.
Meta has since added a host of safety features to Instagram,
including separate accounts for teenagers with stronger protections
around messaging and privacy, along with content restrictions.
But child-safety advocates and experts, along with some former Meta
employees, have long contended that the features are little more
than window dressing.
Arturo Béjar, a former Meta engineering director who testified last
week in the Oakland trial, called the settlement a “significant
milestone” but warned that it should not be interpreted as an “all
clear” sign that Instagram is now safe for children.
“The agreement has a big problem in that it allows Meta to define
harm,” Béjar said in an interview. He urged the court to address
that “because it’s one thing to say, ‘Yeah, you only get like two
hours of alcohol or two hours of cigarettes a day,’ but it’s still
as bad for you because of what’s getting delivered.”
Parents and advocates celebrated the settlement as a moment of
accountability for Meta. Victoria Hinks, mother of Alexandra “Owl”
Hinks, who died by suicide at age 16, said she was satisfied with
the terms “as long as they enforce it properly.”
“It felt like today finally something was done,” she said outside
the Oakland courthouse. “I feel like justice is possible.”
___
Chan reported from London. Huamani reported from Los Angeles.
Associated Press writers Sarah Rankin in Richmond, Virginia, and
Wyatte Grantham-Philips in Chicago contributed to this report.
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